“Months of hard work preparing for the test and an entire school day was lost with the cancellation of the EQAO literacy test—yet another IT blunder at the hands of this government,” said Gretzky. “Failed pilot testing in 2015 and limited access to computers shows that this government fast tracked rolling out a program that simply was not ready. It was our young people who paid the price, yet again.”

Last Thursday, the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test was rolled out across 900 secondary schools, among nearly 200,000 students. Today, EQAO clarified that the technical issue was the result of an online cyber-attack.

“When will this government admit that rushing online testing, cutting in-classroom support, and underfunding programs like special education is failing our students?” asked Gretzky.